What's the best dvd burning software for Linux?

[freebird73717]

I'm using Ubuntu 7.10 and have tried k3b, gnomebaker, and the integrated burning built into nautilus. I'm burning dvd video from iso's created from both imgburn-(build mode) and dvdshrink.

I know that I could use imgburn to through wine to burn my discs but I would rather use a native linux app for burning. So far I have had the best success using k3b.

So what do you use? I'm not afraid of the command line but I would prefer the convience of a gui.

[GMaq]

Hi freebird,

For data discs and ISO's I don't think K3B can be beat, With a couple of extra packages (normalize-volume and mp3 support) it also works very well with the Amarok music player for audio CD's. I have also used Brasero it's pretty simple but also works well for Gnome or Fluxbox environments.

[freebird73717]

Thanks GMaq.

So far the only coaster I have made with k3b was purely my own fault and not the softwares. After doing some more research and reading some posts over at the Ubuntu forums I think that k3b is pretty much the way to go.

I will look into brasero as well thanks!

[freebird73717]

Thanks for suggesting Braserro! Simple little app that does what I want. I found out why burning using the built in burner of nautilus gave me coasters. Burnproof was turned off by default. Thats just crazy. I downloaded Ubuntu Tweak and turned on burnproof for nautilus however I haven't tried burning with it yet.

[GMaq]

Hi,
That IS weird, never have used nautilus myself (I'm using fluxbox now) If you try a burn and it works with the tweak, that would be good to know.

[disturbed1]

I use custom scripts placed in the Nautilus-scripts directory. One to create the DVD ISO, and one to burn the ISO image. It gives right-click functions - What ever I right-click on I choose create DVD ISO, or Burn ISO image.

#!/bin/bash
#Makes a DVD UDF(1.02) ISO
#from the selected folders

xterm -bg white -fg black +hold -T "Building $1.iso" -e mkisofs -V "$1" -o /media/stuff/$1.iso -dvd-video "$1" && zenity --info --text="Finished building $1.iso"

#!/bin/bash
#Burn iso @ 16 speed
#large buffer

xterm -bg white -fg black +hold -T "Burning $1" -e cdrecord speed=16 fs=128m -v -eject "$1" && zenity --info --text="Finished Burning $1"

K3B/Gnome Baker/Brasero/Gnome Burner, are all just GUIs for the same underlying tools. Be sure and install mkisofs and cdrecord to get past the atrocious bugs in Wodim/genisoimage.

I also use Nero Linux sometimes. But find right-click burn faster than launching a gui, choosing this or that, then clicking burn

[freebird73717]

Disturbed1 that is sweet. Thanks for that. I have associated my burning apps with nautilus so I can just right click and choose open with "insert app name here" so there really isn't that many steps. However our method seems even faster though! Thanks! I love tweaks like that.

[freebird73717]

I have to say thank you for letting me know about scripts to extend nautilus's functionality. I love the script to make an iso. Simple and easy.

I have also found other scripts that can do many useful things. Very nice. Thanks again disturbed1!

[disturbed1]

Not a problem

Here's another one I use to encode an avisynth script to xvid for playback on a hardware player. Can't use avidemux because it doesn't support profiles, and I'm a fan of fixed quant encoding. This encodes video only, then I multiplex the video/audio together with avimerge. Menocder always causes sync problems, even with noskip, avidemux causes even worse sync problems, avimerge seems to work just fine.

#!/bin/bash
#avs2yuv in ~.wine/drive_c/windows

mkfifo $1.y4m &&  wine avs2yuv.exe $1 $1.y4m|xterm -bg white -fg black -hold -T "Encoding $1" -e mencoder $1.y4m -o $1.avi -ovc xvid -ffourcc DIVX -noskip -vf hqdn3d=2:1:2,harddup -xvidencopts fixed_quant=2:me_quality=6:trellis:quant_type=mpeg:chroma_opt:vhq=4:lumi_mask:profile=dxnhtntsc:threads=2

Pretty simple to right-click on an avs file and have it directly encoded.


You should check zenity programing. Really simple to use. Here's an example for par2 files. This isn't mine, I got it off the Mepis forums a while back. It shows a great example of using zenity for scripting.

#!/bin/bash

# This script requires "ZENITY" be installed
# 454redhawk created this script using MEPIS 6 in Sep 2006 in Afghanistan.




function OPTIONS ()
{
ACTION=`zenity --height=320 --width=210 \
			--height=250 \
			--title="PAR2 GUI" \
			--text="Pick your Function" \
			--list \
			--radiolist \
			--column="Pick This" \
			--column="Action" \
			False "Verify Files" \
			True "Repair Files" \
			False "Create PAR2 Files"`
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
				exit
			fi
			if [ "$ACTION" = "Verify Files" ]; then
			VERIFY
			elif [ "$ACTION" = "Repair Files" ]; then
			REPAIR
			elif [ "$ACTION" = "Create PAR2 Files" ]; then
			CREATE
			fi
}




 
function VERIFY ()
{
PARFILE=`zenity --title="Select PAR2 File" --file-selection --filename=/home/`
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else
			par2 v -q "$PARFILE" | zenity --width=725 --height=850 --list --title "$PARFILE Info" --text "" --column "Details about $PARFILE"
			#xterm -hold -e 
			fi
			OPTIONS
}
function REPAIR ()
{
PARFILE=`zenity --title="Select PAR2 File" --file-selection --filename=/home/`
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else	
			par2 r -q "$PARFILE" | zenity --width=725 --height=850 --list --title "$PARFILE Info" --text "" --column "Details about $PARFILE"
			#| zenity --width=725 --height=850 --list --title "$PARFILE Info" --text "" --column "Details about $PARFILE"
		fi
		OPTIONS
			
				
			
			
}

function CREATE ()
{


			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else
			PARFILE=`zenity --title="Select Files To Protect" --multiple --file-selection --separator=" " --filename=/home/`
			fi
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else
			NAME=`zenity --entry --entry-text "/home/some--DIR/PAR--File--Name" --text="What would you like to NAME and STORE the PAR files?-----Type the full path otherwise if path is left blank the PAR files will be stored in the DIR where this script is kept"`
			fi
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else
			PERCENT=`zenity --entry --text="What % of redundancy would you like" --entry-text "10"`
			fi
			if [ $? = 1 ]; then
			exit
			else
			xterm -hold -e par2create -r"$PERCENT" "$NAME" ""$PARFILE""
			#| zenity --width=725 --height=850 --list --title "$PARFILE Info" --text "" --column "Details about $PARFILE"
			fi
			OPTIONS
}

OPTIONS

[freebird73717]

Thanks again. As a whole I gotta say I like the linux OS much better than microsoft now. You have much more flexibility to do things.

[freebird73717]

I think that the script usage in nautilus is so important that I have started a new thread just for useful nautilus scripts. Disturbed1 I have listed your iso scripts there and gave you credit for them.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic346167.html#1813701

[DKruskie]

I just tried to burn my first dvd with k3b and it wont burn over 2x it took like 25 mins and the resulting dvd doesnt work on my dvd player, tried imgburn too dvd wont play or burn at more than 2x. What could be causing this? I used dvd lab pro to make the dvd. Using ubuntu gusty 7.10. My dvd burner is a Liteon LH-16W1P with the latest firmware, it work fine in windows, but I would like it to work with ubuntu.

[freebird73717]

hmmm. That's wierd. Since I've figured out how to enable the burnproof feature of ubuntu's built in burner I've been using that lately. While in nautilus I just right click and select write to disc. How are you creating your iso? Are you using disturbed1's create iso nautilus script?

[disturbed1]

I just tried to burn my first dvd with k3b and it wont burn over 2x it took like 25 mins and the resulting dvd doesnt work on my dvd player, tried imgburn too dvd wont play or burn at more than 2x. What could be causing this? I used dvd lab pro to make the dvd. Using ubuntu gusty 7.10. My dvd burner is a Liteon LH-16W1P with the latest firmware, it work fine in windows, but I would like it to work with ubuntu.

How did you use imgburn? Through wine? Not the best idea

Check to make sure dma is on. (Copy and paste, hard to tell the difference between l and I )

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sr0|grep dma

This should give you something like this

DMA: *sdma0 *sdma1 *sdma2 sdma3 sdma4 sdma7 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4

The * indicates which mode the drive is in.



You may not have the correct rights to use the burner. In windows, you're given permission to do what you want with what you want. In Linux, each thing (file/folder/device/etc....) can be owned by a user, a group, or a group of groups/users. Let's check those out -

ls -l /dev/sr0

Will give you something like this
brw-rw---- 1 root optical 11, 0 2008-03-05 21:18 /dev/sr0

In my case, /dev/sr0 is owned by the user root, and group optical. Let's check to make sure I'm in the right group -
groups

Will return -
disk lp wheel network video audio optical floppy storage users

I'm in the right group, and so everything works correctly on my system




Perhaps the media won't allow faster than 2x burning. Let's check -
dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/sr0

Gives me this

INQUIRY: [HP ][DVD Writer 1040d][EH24]
GET [CURRENT] CONFIGURATION:
Mounted Media: 1Bh, DVD+R
Media ID: PRODISC/R05
Current Write Speed: 16.0x1385=22160KB/s
Write Speed #0: 16.0x1385=22160KB/s
Write Speed #1: 12.0x1385=16620KB/s
Write Speed #2: 8.0x1385=11080KB/s
Write Speed #3: 6.0x1385=8310KB/s
GET [CURRENT] PERFORMANCE:
Write Performance: 6.4x1385=8864KB/s@[0 -> 0]
Speed Descriptor#0: 00/0 R@6.4x1385=8864KB/s W@16.0x1385=22160KB/s
Speed Descriptor#1: 00/0 R@6.4x1385=8864KB/s W@12.0x1385=16620KB/s
Speed Descriptor#2: 00/0 R@6.4x1385=8864KB/s W@8.0x1385=11080KB/s
Speed Descriptor#3: 00/0 R@6.4x1385=8864KB/s W@6.0x1385=8310KB/s
READ DVD STRUCTURE[#0h]:
Media Book Type: 00h, DVD-ROM book [revision 0]
Legacy lead-out at: 2295104*2KB=4700372992
READ DISC INFORMATION:
Disc status: blank
Number of Sessions: 1
State of Last Session: empty
"Next" Track: 1
Number of Tracks: 1
READ TRACK INFORMATION[#1]:
Track State: blank
Track Start Address: 0*2KB
Next Writable Address: 0*2KB
Free Blocks: 2295104*2KB
Track Size: 2295104*2KB
ROM Compatibility LBA: 262144
READ CAPACITY: 0*2048=0

This disc allows 16x writing with my burning.

Post the results of the commands I've given above, and we'll see what we can fix.

[DKruskie]

yeah imgburn through wine
I get this for the sudo hdparm -I /dev/sr0|grep dma
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Input/output error

[disturbed1]

How about just
sudo hdparm -I /dev/sr0

Note, that is a capital i, not a lower case L (copy+paste ).

Using |grep dma shouldn't let anything display besides those items that have dma in it. For example, an ls in your home directory will return eveything in that directory (Documents, Music, Videos), but if you ls | grep Videos, it will only return Videos, and leave the other stuff out .


------------edit----------

IS /dev/sr0 your DVD Burner?

ls -l /dev/cdrom

ls /dev/cd

[DKruskie]

I get this with the sudo
/dev/sr0:
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Input/output error

k3b says its /dev/scd0

[disturbed1]

Which should just be a simple symlink to ????
do this -

ls -l /dev/scd0

It will tell you the actual name of the device without all of the symlink trickery. Perhaps something like this
scd0 -> sr0

The -> is where the device is linked to. Replace sr0 with what it states there.

If that errors out, either hdparm is not installed and or running. Check your services (System, Administration, services) and put a check in the hdparm box, restart. Try again.


Note -

using hdparm on symlinks should work, at least it will give information back. But to be sure, use the actual device.

[DKruskie]

i got this
brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2008-03-07 07:17 /dev/scd0

I checked the hdparm and had to check the box for it.

[disturbed1]

brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2008-03-07 07:17 /dev/scd0

Breaks down like this

brw, the first part belongs to the owner (root)
b=block device, r=read,w=write. This means root owns this block device and can read and write to it.

-rw, the second part belongs to the group (cdrom)
means anyone in the group cdrom has the permission to read and write from/to this block device.

Check to make sure you are in the group cdrom

groups

Or, I think there's a gui for user admin in the administration control pannel.


The device was created on 2008-03-07 07:17. Most likely the installation date of the system .

[DKruskie]

david adm dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev scanner lpadmin admin netdev powerdev

[disturbed1]

david adm dialout cdrom floppy audio dip video plugdev scanner lpadmin admin netdev powerdev

That's a few groups there

Everything looks good. After checking hdparm, restart, then try burning from the command line. K3B, gnome baker, Nautilus CD/DVD Burner, and so on, are all just gui's for the underlying tools wodim and or cdrecord. More on wodim later .

Simple command to burn you iso image -
First let's make sure we're using cdrecord, and not Debian's bastard child wodim*

cdrecord --version
If it spouts out wodim here, not a big issue. Depending on your thoughts and practices it can be fixed if you wish.



cdrecord speed=8 fs=32m -v -eject dev=/dev/scd0 /home/david/file.iso

cdrecord = program name
speed = you figure it out
fs = fifo size, buffer memory
-v = verbose - gives us some details
-eject = yep
dev=/dev/scd0 = the name of your device, check this to make it's write
/home/david/file.iso = the absolute path and file name of the iso image you want to burn.

Burning from the command line gives us the opportunity to see what's happening underneath it all.





cdrecord uses the CDDL licensing method which DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) doesn't agree with. This is the similar to what Firefox is licensed under, which is why debian uses IceDove instead of Firefox. Wodim is full of bugs, and has been for close to 2 years now, with little to no updates/fixes. Thankfully Ubuntu does offer the cdrtools package (cdrecord, mkisofs, and others). Search in synaptic for it. Wodim/genisoimage may or may not cause problems for you. But it's worth noting here. http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/linux-dist.html

[DKruskie]

Cdrecord-ProDVD-ProBD-Clone 2.01.01a33 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2007 J�rg Schilling

[disturbed1]

Cdrecord-ProDVD-ProBD-Clone 2.01.01a33 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2007 J�rg Schilling

Good, it's legit. So what happens when you try to burn the iso from command line now?

[DKruskie]

I'm having problems with create and iso image nautilus script..it just blinks and says finished building iso.

[disturbed1]

If you copied and pasted the script I wrote above, it defines the output directory. You'll have to edit that. I put /media/stuff as the destination.

[Midzuki]

In Win32 I use something like this:

mkisofs -v -V volumename -o filename.iso -dvd-video C:/DVDVolume

[DKruskie]

How can change this so it will work so if I click on any folder it will make the dvd iso for me.

#!/bin/bash
#Makes a DVD UDF(1.02) ISO
#from the selected folders

xterm -bg white -fg black +hold -T "Building $1.iso" -e mkisofs -V "$1" -o "/home/david/dvd/$1.iso" -dvd-video "$1" && zenity --info --text="Finished building $1.iso"

[disturbed1]

xterm -bg white -fg black +hold -T "Building $1.iso" -e mkisofs -V "$1" -o /home/david/dvd/$1.iso -dvd-video "$1" && zenity --info --text="Finished building $1.iso"

The changes are in bold.


The above will work to create an iso from a validly authored DVD.


Create a folder named for the DVD, inside that folder place the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders. Let's say you authored david's movie, the structure would be this -

DAVIDS_MOVIE - main folder
VIDEO_TS AUDIO_TS inside main folder

Right click on DAVIDS_MOVIE and select create iso. According to the modified script you posted above, this will create an iso image in /home/david/dvd/ named DAVIDS_MOVIE with the volume name of DAVIDS_MOVIE.


Notice the caps and no spaces. DVD volume labels allow normal letters, numbers, and _ no spaces no special characters (!@#$%^&). It's best to have all caps for backwards compatibility.

[DKruskie]

Thanks works great for making the dvd iso's for me..I have question..when you insert a blank dvd in the burner, is it supposed show a disc on the desktop saying blank dvd+r disc? I havent tried to burn the image yet.